


forty-two

by itsgameover



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Ghosthunter Oh Sehun, Light Angst, M/M, Past Character Death, Writer Park Chanyeol, thoughts about the afterlife and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27594638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsgameover/pseuds/itsgameover
Summary: "They say you die twice. Once when you stop breathing and the second, a bit later on, when somebody mentions your name for the last time."
Relationships: Oh Sehun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26
Collections: Desert Fire Fest Round 1





	forty-two

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt DF024 written for the Desert Fire Fest, a Park Chanyeol/Oh Sehun fest.
> 
> I had a really good time writing this fic and I'm happy with the outcome despite not being my original idea.  
> Thank you dear prompter for this wonderful idea, hopefully I did your prompt justice <3  
> Hope you enjoy reading this <3

“Beauty exists not in what is seen and remembered,  
but in what is felt and never forgotten.”  
**― Johnathan Jena**

━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━

Sehun pulls up at the end of the cul de sac, in front of a house that very much resembles the one he visited a few months ago, where five ghosts terrorized delivery boys, and he thinks that it must not be a coincidence. Ghosts must really like victorian-esque houses. He shrugs, picks up his equipment from the backseat and walks up to the house. Sitting on the porch is a couple, a petite woman and a muscular man, both wearing worried expressions and matching pastel sweaters. 

“Hello, are you Mr Kim?” Sehun asks. 

“Yes, I am” the man answers, standing up quickly “Are you the ghost hunter?” Sehun nods, extending his hand to salute the man. 

“Oh, thank God!” the woman exclaims, all but jumping from her seat “I am Joohyun, this is my husband, Junmyeon. We ‘moved’” she says, making air quotes with her fingers “three days ago, but haven’t been able to sleep a single night.”

“You described over the phone that a strange entity was present in your house, right?” Junmyeon nods, the woman clings to his arm, rolling her eyes. 

“I don’t know what that thing wants, but it hollers day and night. There is howling and screeches and sometimes I see scratches in the walls. I was showering one day and the door busted open then it closed violently” Sehun nods as he types down in his phone what she describes “I was crying in the bathroom, Mr Ghostbuster”

“Just Sehun is fine” he says, smiling softly “I think yours is the typical case of a lost soul searching for something”

“How do you know?” Junmyeon asks, brows furrowed. 

“Ah, I’ve seen things like these in the past” he crosses his arms over his chest “Ghost are left in the world for several reasons, most of them because the soul themself refuses to leave, clinging to a memory or a loved one they left behind”

“Well, it can’t be a really old ghost” Joohyun shrugs “the house was put on sale last year, according to our real estate agent”

“Is that so?” Sehun types a little bit more, noting that it must be a recent soul.

Junmyeon nods, “the neighbours say people lived here a year before it was put on sale”

“I see, I see” Sehun locks his phone and throws it inside the pocket of his jeans “I’ll see what I can do. But I don’t think it will be particularly hard to solve your issue”

“Thank heavens for Ghostbusters,” Joohyun says, patting his arm gently, a tender smile on her face. 

Junmyeon makes some accommodations, gives him the copy of the house keys and tells him the rooms in which is more likely that he’ll get some signs of the ghost, before shaking his hand and thanking him in advance for his work. Sehun smiles and watches the pair drive off in their pretty car. And then he heads indoors. 

The place is far more modern on the inside than what the exterior seems to suggest. The walls are painted in a soft cream shade, a suede couch wrapped in plastic, a coffee table with fake flowers on a crystal vase. Opposite to the couch is a fireplace, over it a few portraits of the couple, one from their wedding day, another featuring them seemingly at a younger age if their looks are anything to go by, and several small pictures of what could be their respective families. The curtains are drawn and the sun gives everything a beautiful family ambiance. Sehun can almost hear the faint notes of a piano… except he actually hears them. 

Frowning, the ghostbuster walks to the staircase and the notes become more and more noticeable the more he climbs the steps. At the top of the stairs he makes out the melody of a song he knows, the 6th Consolation by Franz Liszt. His older brother played it a lot when they were kids, one of their favourite classical pieces. 

He gently opens the door where the music comes from and suddenly the melody comes to a halt. Sehun turns on the ‘ghost box’, a small piece of equipment that resembles a hearing aid and it’s used to translate supernatural noises to mortal-esque sound waves, and stands very still, not crossing the threshold. 

“My name is Oh Sehun” he says to the room where two desks, shelves full of books, a sofa and a piano sit. The light filters through half open curtains, fabric floating gently in the wind. “I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here to help you. I know standing in between worlds must be pretty difficult, others have told me that before. It’s just that the owners of this house really would like to sleep calmly for once”

There is silence, the wind subdues, the lemon painted walls reflecting the sunlight in a beautiful manner, making the room seem bigger. 

“They are not the owners” a deep voice says “My parents are.”

“Oh, well I didn’t know that”

A scoff, then a snicker “Of course you didn’t. No one asks, they just scream that I should be gone”. The sofa cushions dent gently and speck by speck a figure becomes visible. Before Sehun’s very own eyes is a man, lanky and slender, fluffy mop of black hair obscuring partly his big doe eyes. He’s wearing a hoodie, looking rather soft and a little bit too big for his small frame, and a pair of jeans that may as well be identical to Sehun’s. 

He’s beautiful, even with pursed lips and black circles surrounding his eyes, with his arms crossed and looking angry, he is beautiful. Sehun is, for the first time in his decade of working as a ghostbuster, in awe of a wayward soul. 

“I’m sorry about that” Sehun says, voice faltering “Some people don’t know how to treat a soul”

“‘Some people’” the ghost laughs, a pretty thing rolling off his nonexistent tongue like a melody “Just say it. _Ghost. Buster_. I know you all want to trap me in a box and let me become creepy plasma. I’m not doing that”

“Ah, you’ve seen the movies” 

The ghost shrugs “Everyone has seen them”

“Well they are full of shit” Sehun says and one of the ghost’s pretty eyebrows quip upwards “as I said before, I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here to help. Real ghost hunters are there to help souls transit to paradise, to end their days of endless wandering, sort out what they are looking for”

The ghost’s expression changes suddenly, eyes softering, arms uncrossing fast as his hands just to cling to the armrest of the sofa “Really?” he asks, Sehun nods, right hand over his heart “Then would you help me find my dog?”

“Your dog?” 

“Please”

Sehun cocks his head to the side, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards “Ok, I’ll do it” the boy jumps, even if his movements make no noise Sehun can almost hear the way his shoes kick the ground as he stands up “But!” he interjects, right as the ghost walks up to him “You have to tell me your name”

“Oh, I didn’t introduce myself, right?” the boy blushes deeply, scratching his nape. _Huh_. Sehun didn’t know ghost could blush, interesting information.“I’m Park Chanyeol, nice to meet you, Oh Sehun” he stretches a hand and for a moment both of them forget he is no longer made of matter, so his fingers merely cause a shiver in Sehun’s palm “Sorry” the boy says and his apology makes Sehun smile. 

━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━

The rooms are tidy and small, despite the grandiose nature of the house, with ocher tones bursting from every corner, from curtains to carpets, from suede couches to wooden furniture. And it’s nice, cozy like an autumn day. It reminds Sehun of his childhood, of sitting in front of a large wooden table, the smell of freshly baked cookies and chocolate milk filling his nostrils.

The biggest room in the house is the one with the piano, right where Sehun found his new ghost follower, tall and lanky like an overgrown puppy with no control of his limbs. 

“Sorry!” the sweet ghost claims, when he busts into Sehun only to cause him a shiver from head to toes. 

“It’s okay, don’t worry” Sehun smiles in a way that he hopes is reassuring to the sheepish man “Tell me about your dog”

“Oh, my dog!” Chanyeol yells, excitedly and Sehun thinks he can see dimples in those ghostly cheeks. “He… he was…” Chanyeol’s eyebrows furrow, lips pursed into a pout, shoulders dropped. “I don’t… don’t remember.”

Chanyeol seems to be at the edge of tears, lower lip quivering, hands trembling where they rest laced together over his chest.

“Do you remember his name?” Sehun asks and if the man in front of him were alive, he’d grab his hands to try and calm him down.

“Yes, my favourite composer! Beethoven!” the ghostly boy chimes, smiling bright once more.

“Beethoven, ok, that’s a good start” Sehun turns to the stairs, whistling as he calls out the animal’s name, moving step by step down the pretty staircase “Beethoven, Beethoven!”

“Wait!” Chanyeol hastens to say “We didn’t call him by his full name!”

Sehun sighs, trying not to get exasperated, “What did you call him then?”

“Toben! Toben was small and cute and… all black, yes!”

“When did you last see Toben?”

“Before I died,” he sighs, as if lost in a memory “he was by my bed...” 

The man’s face turns sour, then he smiles in a way that betrays the sadness inside his troubled soul. His unfinished business is linked to a dog, a dog that he adored and that in turn was so loyal that he remained by his master’s side until his last breathing moments. So, maybe the how he died could be important.

“Chanyeol,” Sehun starts, the ghost’s puppy eyes shining as they lift to see him “how did you die?” 

“Well, I-” he hiccups, diverting his eyes away. In all his time dealing with being from the afterlife, Sehun has never seen a ghost cry. “It’s a… it’s a long story”

“I have time,” Sehun sets foot on the carpeted floor of the living room, turning to Chanyeol with a smile “We can look for Toben while you tell me.”

━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━

Chanyeol collapses on the floor of the music room, a gentle thud alerting his mother, sitting in the room next door, that something is wrong. She finds him shivering, Toben frantically licking his face to try and get him to stand up. 

He is put in bed, covered with his favourite throw blanket, his little dog sleeping on the end of the bed, little paws supporting his head. He spends a day and a half like that, limbs weak and shaking. Chanyeol eats oatmeal for breakfast and sleeps again, living in brief glimpses of life in between hours of dreamless sleep.

A few days later it happens again, he’s sat in front of his computer and the images blur before he faintly calls his mother’s name. His father is the one that comes, grabbing him by the arms and dragging him back into his bed. 

He gets nothing done, feeling his limbs weaken and weaken by the day. In the mirror there is no longer Chanyeol, there is just a shadow of himself, skin and bones. The skin of his chest is covered in red spots and his neck displays strange little bulges. His mother tells him he is too old to be trying to lose weight again, thought that he had left his insecurities about his body in high school, and puts a little bit more of food on his plate. 

The editor asks him if he will have the first rough draft done by friday, Chanyeol tells him he won’t and he can almost feel the way his editor shakes his head as he sighs.

After his first successful book, Chanyeol is expected to drop another hit, especially since he scored a million copies. But his brain has been in a deep slumber, working out half baked ideas that melt into garbage when he tries to write them. It’s breaking his heart to be just a one-hit wonder, to be the kid that wrote one good book and never again could put together a thread of coherent thoughts. 

On friday he visits the doctor and walks out with a bunch of medical exams on his to-do list for the following week. 

Three weeks later he walks into the doctor’s office with all the results in his hand. The doctor takes out his specs, pinching the bridge of his nose before regarding Chanyeol with a stare that tells him all he needs to know: he’s dying, like everyone else, but faster and it’s going to break his soul. 

The doctor tells him it’s leukemia. Chanyeol’s mother cries when he tells them the news and his father avoids looking at him, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as he squeezes his wife’s shoulders, attempting to comfort her.

Chanyeol spends his days learning a few new songs on the piano, toying with the keys and the speed of his fingers, watching his skeletal phalanges wrestle against the inevitable decay. The only company he wants is his pet, his loyal and wonderful Toben. 

_Toben_ , small and happy, a bundle of black hair running at full speed unknowing of the fact that his master’s legs no longer work as they should. Toben, who looks at him with adoration, who licks his hand, his arm, his face, who watches movies with him when the pain keeps him from sleeping soundly. Toben who can’t regard him like a sickly little thing, like the fragile collection of bones he has become.

His hair falls piece by piece as he progresses with the treatment, Toben licks his head when he turns completely bald and Chanyeol laughs. His mother tells him it’s the first time he has heard him laugh in months. Chanyeol struggles to tell her he always wants to laugh but he never has a reason too. 

Eventually, he weakens so much that the medics advise him to stay in internment but as the adult he is, he refuses to comply. He wants to stay at home, wants to see his wall lined with books shining in the morning sun, wants to hear the birds chirping from their nests in the high trees of the backyard, wants to wake up with his throw blanket and his pillows, wants to smell the food his mother makes, wants to see his dog jumping over his duvet and making a home for himself by Chanyeol’s hip, head carefully positioned to get the most pets possible.

He keeps writing, in between fevers and chills and painful retorts, he fights to put words into a blank page because that’s all that will be left of him when he finally succumbs to the illness. He doesn’t want to be a one-hit wonder, he wants them, the world, to know that he can do more than that, that he is smart and good with words. Chanyeol can’t deal with the fact that his memory will be just one book collecting dust and nothing else. 

Toben licks his palm once, twice, Chanyeol’s laptop drops to the floor and he is just seeing it happen, unable to move, to breathe. Toben barks loudly, whimpers when Chanyeol falls back against the pillows and the last thing he remembers is his father calling for an ambulance and his fierce and protective little dog licking his face frantically.

━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━

“Toben was good, really good” Chanyeol muses, back against the wall of the hallway between the kitchen and the laundry room, “He never let me alone, he was there for me and made me smile when I needed it the most” he sniffs, slides the cuffs of his big hoodie. “I just want to find him, to tell him I love him and I’m so glad to have had him in my life for as long as I did.”

Sehun has never had such a long and in-depth chat with a ghost before, never heard their story so clearly displayed for him, their thoughts and their fears and the reason why they want to stay so thoroughly explained. And it makes his heart twinge in a way that certainly makes him feel like he is next in line to turn into a being between two worlds, all the corners of his soul aching with the need to hug this poor tortured soul, to tell him he won’t be forgotten as long as he lives. It burns within him this thought, that if Chanyeol were still alive, Sehun would have fallen for him like a moth drawn into the light. 

“I just hope he is well cared for,” Chanyeol says, breaking Sehun’s train of thought before he actually falls for a being that can no longer be loved like he deserves to be loved. 

“Don’t you think your parents took him with them when they sold the house?”

Chanyeol is shaking his head even before he ends his question, “My parents didn’t like pets, but they allowed me to keep Toben because he was good at making me happy. I had depression when I was a teenager. I adopted Toben when I was eighteen and he kept me company for eight years before I passed away.” He scoffs and Sehun cocks his head in inquiry “It’s nothing I just… it’s weird to talk about me dying, me being dead.”

“I once met a girl who laughed when I explained to her that her death had been due to a kitchen accident” Chanyeol’s eyebrows perk up in interest, lips twitching into a smile. “She said ‘of course I’d die in a stupid domestic accident, of course!’ and then she vanished. Apparently she just wanted to know what had happened to her!” 

“Well, poor girl. At least I remember why I am in this side of living”

It must be weird, Sehun thinks, dying and being aware of how and when it happened. If in the beginning he couldn’t remember about his dog it must be because he had no one to talk to. He had been a year alone and then a couple barges in, moving away his things like nothing mattered, except for the piano. That room had been where he found Chanyeol, it must have been where he found comfort and solace during this strange sort of being, existing but not really. 

“Do you have any idea of who could have taken Toben if your parents didn’t?” Sehun asks, trying to change the topic before the existentialism dwells deep inside his heart. 

Chanyeol ponders for a minute, thumb and index finger softly caressing his chin, then he smiles, bright and wide and beautifully childish “Mrs and Mr Kwon!” he chimes, leaning forward “They are an elderly couple, living a few houses away from us. Mrs Kwon used to be my kindergarten teacher and Mr Kwon was my dad’s boss when he was younger”

“Then, I’m off to find Mrs and Mr Kwon” Sehun stands up and fishes his phone from his back pocket, eyes blowing wide when he notices the time “Better to go tomorrow, since it’s currently 3am and those poor elders must be sleeping.”

“Oh, oh! Of course!” Chanyeol leans forward as he stands, almost as if he wanted to touch Sehun but retrieving in the very last moment “Go to sleep, Sehun-ah! It’s late and I’m sure you must be tired too...” Sehun nods and both stride together towards the door with calm steps, almost as if both were hesitant to leave each other’s company “Thank you…” Chanyeol says, a sincere smile gracing his adorable face “for listening… and for, well, being kind when no one else was.”

“It’s my duty to be good to…” he scoffs, avoiding the word he refuses to bestow upon Chanyeol’s wonderful soul “I am always good, but… it was nice hearing you. You are a very interesting man, Park Chanyeol”

“Was” Chanyeol corrects through a giggle.

“Was, indeed” Sehun says and he doesn’t know why his soul hurts when he thinks of this sweet and handsome man being past beyond his reach, physical or otherwise. 

━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━

Mrs Kwon is an old feeble lady with grey hair and wrinkles around her tiny eyes. She walks slowly, aided by a wooden cane and draped in a colorfully knitted shroud. 

As soon as Sehun mentions Chanyeol the woman’s eyes shoot wide open and soon she is ushering him inside. Her house is small but cute, living room overcrowded with mismatched pieces of furniture, two armchairs under the sunlight that filters through half open curtains, and a hundred different pictures lining the walls. 

“Were you a friend of our little Yeollie?”

“Yes,” Sehun answers, “We met a while ago.”

“I never saw you in the Park’s house”

“Well, I lived in the United States.”

“Oh,” her smile turns sadder “You didn’t arrive on time, did you?”

“No,” Sehun thinks and only a part of him is lying. Because for some reason he feels his heart shatter in a thousand pieces, thinking he could have met such a brilliant and resilient soul, that he arrived after it was too late, never allowed to truly meet the man Chanyeol was. 

He wonders, idly as he sits in between the mountain of little pillows on the big sofa, after Mrs Kwon admonishes him for attempting to stand up and help her make tea for him, what it would have been to meet someone like Chanyeol. He wonders, stirring his cup of tea, how Chanyeol would have been when he was a teen, how would he have reacted to Sehun’s first days as a boy hunting ghosts in the attic of his home. He wonders if they could have been good friends, wonders if Chanyeol likes boys and wonders if he could have been Chanyeol’s type. 

For the first time, Sehun is reluctant to help a soul transit to the other side of living. 

“Chanyeol was always a sweet soul,” Mrs Kwon tells him, staring with fond eyes at a picture of the boy in question that hangs to the left of the ocean of pictures that cover the wall opposite to the sofa “His mother used to tell me he was so bright that the sun couldn’t compete with his light. His father was less expressive but not for that less loving. They both were so proud of him.”

How not to be proud, Sehun thinks, when their son was a published writer and a successful one at that? Besides, what kind parent doesn’t look at their child and think they are worth all the gold in the world and some more? Even Sehun’s parents, who don’t like his job, still tell him that they are proud of him. 

“Chanyeol was such a wonderful boy,” she turns to stare at him with a sympathetic expression grazing her features. “Hyunjae, my late husband, told me he didn’t want to attend his funeral. He was too young to leave the world. My daughter told me that if he had been a little bit older she would have dated him…” Mrs Kwon scoffs, sipping her tea with a raised eyebrow “Well, if he had liked girls I’m sure they would have dated.” 

Sehun smiles, so he may have had a chance with living and breathing Chanyeol. What a shame they never met in those circumstances. 

Then another, wild and scary, thought crosses his mind. 

Is it possible to fall for someone who you have never truly met but have spoken to for an entire night? 

And if it’s possible, did Sehun really lucked out so badly that he finds love in the afterlife?

“Do you know what happened to Chanyeol’s dog?” Sehun asks, finding somewhere deep inside his ‘get the job done’ core the will to pull through this entire endeavour and find his way back to what he came to do here. 

“Toben? That little bundle of joy…” the woman smes so warmly at that. “Hyunjae wanted to keep him but then he passed away and I couldn’t take care of him on my own. I believe Boah took him”

“Where does Boah live?”

“In the city, near the business district.” Mrs Kwon stands up and starts browsing through a small cupboard in one of her many pieces of furniture. She comes back to Sehun with a black and silver business card “She is the manager of an idol girl group, very successful.” 

The business card reads ‘Kwon Boah, Manager. For inquiries: KKT X-X-X’ and Sehun feels like this is going to be the end of his little journey with Chanyeol. 

“Call her,” Mrs Kwon says, “If she has that little dog, please take care of him. Toben was everything for Yeollie and if Yeollie means something to you-”

“He means so much,” Sehun adds, almost unconsciously.

“I know, sweet child, I know,” her hand pats Sehun’s shoulder kindly, a sour smile on her lips “Then take Toben and give him the best life. It’s what Chanyeol would have wanted for his best friend.” 

━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━

Kwon Boah lives in a small apartment in the middle of the bustling city. The traffic is insane and it takes him hours to reach her street. When he is four blocks away, he struggles to park his car and gets out before he loses his mind trying to defeat the traffic. 

“Hello?” Boah answers after the third time Sehun rings her doorbell. 

“Hi, I’m Oh Sehun. I called you before, you told me to come!” he swallows hard, suddenly very aware of his dried up throat “I’m a friend of Park Chanyeol”

There is a pause. “Park Chanyeol is dead,” the woman says then.

“I know, I just wanted to know if you had his dog, Toben. Chanyeol was very attached to him and I… I’m very attached to Chanyeol,” it should be a lie but it’s not. Never before Sehun has felt so tied up to someone he didn’t even really meet “If you could let me see the dog only once I’ll go happily” he takes his ID card from his back pocket and positions it in front of the camera, “This is my ID, so you can confirm I’m not lying, I-” 

The door opens, a short woman with a towel wrapped around her head stands in front of him. 

“Were you Chanyeol’s boyfriend?” she asks, tilting her head with narrowed eyes. 

Sehun swallows hard, “No,” he admits, sadly. Then he smiles, feeling silly as he says, “I wish I was though,” because that is not a lie. 

Kwon Boah smiles, “come in, Toben is napping on the couch.”

━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━

Sehun pulls up at the end of the cul de sac, in front of a house that very much resembles the one he visited a few months ago, where five ghosts terrorized delivery boys, and he thinks that it must not be a coincidence. Ghosts must really like victorian-esque houses. He shrugs, picks up the little black dog, wrapped in a purple sweater, from the backseat and walks up to the house. There is none there, he already knows that, the porch is empty, and a gentle breeze moves the wind chimes, holding on for dear life to the overhang over them. 

Toben had been sleeping most of the ride, curled up in a ball in the kernel sitting in the backseat, occasionally whimpering but mostly silent, the very picture of a perfect good boy. But, as soon as Sehun pulled up in the cul de sac, Toben whined and howled, high and long, as if he was calling someone to meet him. 

It's going to get dark soon, nearly 6:30pm. It makes sense that it is so late, he’d been driving for an hour to reach the quiet neighbourhood after visiting the busy idol manager and retrieving the adorable dog, and a light flickers on the second floor. If Sehun’s mind doesn’t fail him, that is the music room. Chanyeol must be playing again. 

“Chanyeollie wants to see you, Toben” Sehun tells the dog as he opens the front door and heads to the stairs. “He has been waiting for you for a long time, silly boy.”

Toben whines again, hiding his face against Sehun’s chest. 

“Sehun?” Chanyeol’s low voice mutters. Sehun turns around to find him standing on the edge of the music room, ghostly hands gripping the door frame “Is that…?”

“Toben,” Sehun nods, putting the dog down and soon Chanyeol is on his knees, whimpering as the little dog approaches him, step by step, smelling the air and barking once, twice. Then Toben runs and Sehun is terrified that the dog will get hurt when he smashes his head against the wall but then he is terrified for a whole nother reason. 

Toben not only does not smack his little head against the wall behind Chanyeol, but Chanyeol picks him up and the dog licks his master’s face, barking loudly and happily. 

“Chanyeol…” Sehun’s voice comes out two octaves higher than usual, almost whiny “You… you can hold him…”

Then Chanyeol panics, his arms tightening around the small black dog until it whimpers and then he lets him go. Toben reaches up for Chanyeol’s legs, paws hitting his calves, proving that wasn’t just an illusion. There is flesh on Chanyeol’s image. 

“I… I am…”

“Corporeal,” the ghost hunter finishes, stepping forward with his arm extended towards the ghostly man.

Chanyeol stares at his hand, eyes wide open, and when Sehun touches his chest he is warm. It’s almost like he wasn’t dead. Except Sehun doesn’t feel a heartbeat, there is nothing behind his ribcage. Solid flesh, yes, but no life. Chanyeol is still dead, he just borrowed his flesh for a moment. 

Sehun can’t believe he is sad for the fact that a ghost is dead. 

“There is no heartbeat,” he announces, stepping back. 

“So I’m still dead,” Chanyeol’s eyes drop and there are tears pooling on them. 

“Of course you are,” Sehun says, desperately pulling the crying man closer, wrapping his long arms around that wiry frame. “But you have hands to pet Toben once more, enjoy it. There is a chance for you to show him you love him once more. Tell him.” 

“And then what? He’ll be alone and sad and I’ll vanish into oblivion.”

“You vanish, but not into oblivion. When your body is gone, your soul searches for it’s new home.” Sehun ponders how to best explain the little things he knows about the afterlife.“The First Law of Thermodynamics?” Chanyeol shakes his head, Sehun’s thumbs linger on his cheekbones, desperate to brush away the sadness in those cute puppy eyes “Well, it estates that energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. You are energy, your soul is energy...”

He steps back but Chanyeol steps forward, hands grabbing Sehun’s forearms tightly. 

Staring deep into those intense dark eyes, that sincere stare that tells Sehun that he can’t leave this man to vanish without being told something magical about his departure, he thinks about the people who have met him and feels intensely and stupidly jealous. He feels jealous of Mr and Mrs Kwon for getting to see Chanyeol grow up and blossom into a brilliant young man. He feels jealous of Kwon Boah for being such good friends with him, so much that she only agreed to let Toben go after Sehun told her things no one who didn’t meet and love Chanyeol could have known. 

But then he feels a strange sort of joy for being the only one aware of Chanyeol in this moment, the only one who gets to bid him goodbye for good. Sehun thinks of Kwon Boah and her parents, of Chanyeol’s parents, of every person who must have met Chanyeol and how none of them know that the boy they are so fiercely proud of, so happy to have met, so sad to have lost, is still wandering between the walls of his home, unwilling to let go. 

“Souls, the energy that powers our bodies, can be created but not destroyed. Your soul will fly away and find a new home. Maybe you’ll become a small and cute animal to be pampered by a spoiled rich girl from Itaewon or Gangnam” he shrugs, smiling at Chanyeol with half closed eyes “Or maybe you’ll come back as a small baby and there will be another wonderful writer in the future writing about the struggles of our time with sharp words and an astounding wit.”

Chanyeol gasps, holding Sehun tighter, “You read my book?”

“Last year. My mom gifted it to me for Christmas, she said she was really moved by ‘this child that wrote so much wisdom before reaching 30’.” both of them laugh, Chanyeol tucking his chin to hide his reddened cheeks “Chanyeol, if you let go, if you pet Toben a hundred thousand times and bid him goodbye like he deserves, I promise I will take care of him”

“You do?”

Sehun nods. He is not home enough to be able to take care of a pet, but he will try his best for Chanyeol, will take Toben with him and train him to spot ghosts and poltergeists and find holes in the wall where secrets may be hidden. 

“Sehun...” Chanyeol whispers and his arms feel lighter where they rest over Sehun’s hips “You are very handsome”

“So are you, Chanyeol”

“I was, Sehun,” he says, giggling. The weight of his hands turns to a shivering cold touch but Sehun doesn’t pull away when Chanyeol leans to kiss him, lips pressing together so hard that Sehun thinks he won’t be able to open his mouth ever again. But they open, part so diligently when Chanyeol pushes his tongue in and then there are tears falling, whimpers creeping from both of their throats and they part. 

But both of them are smiling, stepping away from each other before Chanyeol leans down and grabs Toben, tips of his fingers still corporeal as they thread through the dog’s adorable fur. Toben whines, whimpers and licks the tears off his best friend’s face and Chanyeol laughs. 

The dead man raises his head up just in time to vanish, silhouette melting to shine in the dusk that shines through the opened windows. Chanyeol’s eye smile is serified in Sehun’s mind, watching it disappear in slow motion along with his cute dimple and cosy looking hoodie. 

Sehun falls to his knees, staring at the million little specks of sunlight that move away from the place where a few moments ago Park Chanyeol stood in. He has witnessed many souls drift away, he has seen them find their way to the other side a thousand times, but it has never made him weep like this, never made him feel so helpless and tiny. 

Toben is there, though, jumping up and down, paws hitting Sehun’s arm and chest and back and folded legs. And when he looks, Toben jumps into his arms and presses his nuzzle against Sehun’s neck. Sehun smiles, petting the fur of his head with a sad smile. 

A promise is a promise and Toben has to eat before 8pm or he gets mad. 

━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━

Sehun stays in the house, in the middle of the music room, for another two hours. He found dog food in the house, apparently the new owners planned on bringing a pet with them soon. 

For a moment he believes someone is sitting on the piano, but it’s only the shadows the street light casts through the opened window. Sehun feels sad but relieved, never before experiencing this sort of rewarding but utterly harrowing thought that something he loves has left him when a soul drifts. 

He calls Mrs Joohyun and informs them there should be no more problems within the house. The relieved sigh that comes from the other line gives him mental peace, knowing that this is why he came. Not to make a sad man happy but cleaning a house so a new owner can enjoy it’s commodities. 

Still, Toben’s insistent barking, urging Sehun to stand up, he feels very much like he did come here to make Chanyeol’s last goodbye as happy as possible. And it seems like he succeeded in that big side quest.

A few days later, through Boah, Sehun manages to contact Chanyeol’s parents. Lying like he did to everyone else who knew Chanyeol, Sehun gets what he asked for: pictures of Chanyeol, living and breathing enjoying his life. 

Funnily enough, 8 of the 10 pictures Mrs Park sends feature a little black dog and a tall, tall man, with a wide and bright smile, narrowed eyes and glowing cheeks. Happy, living, breathing. 

Sehun feels like he knew him a little bit when, a few weeks later, Mr Park invites Sehun to his job, a construction company in the business district of the city. He offers Sehun coffee and drinks a strong black espresso in counterpart to Sehun’s milky cappuccino. Mr Park tells Sehun anecdotes of Chanyeol’s life, tells him that he never told him how much he loved him, how proud he was of him, how smart and capable and bright he was. He never told him how good it was that Chanyeol had found something like writing, something that made him happy, and pursued it with his whole heart. 

“As far as I know, Mr Park,” Sehun says, putting down his cup of coffee, “he knew. As you said, he was very bright. Chanyeol surely figured you were stoic but still loving. After all, how many parents support their children in their artistic pursuits?”

“Not enough,” Mr Park answers, biting back a sob. “Thank you, Sehun.”

“No need, Mr Park. I’m just doing what friends do”

“Were you only friends?”

Apparently, everyone knew Chanyeol didn’t like girls. Sehun smiles. So, Chanyeol was happy, living, breathing and proud.

“Yes,” Sehun admits “I wish we would have been more.”

Mr Park smiles at him, sad but empathetic. 

As Sehun walks out of that massive building, hands inside his pockets, sky grey as if rain is just minutes away from falling, he feels something strange inside his chest. 

Sehun feels as if he knew Chanyeol, like he is allowed to mourn him too. The twinge inside his ribcage is the mourning that he has never quite experienced before, never losing someone close enough to cause him sorrow. And it is as sad as it is happy, for Sehun thinks nothing is as beautiful as loving someone and having a scar across your heart to prove they were there once they leave.

Rain falls, Toben cuddles up against his side, Sehun staring through the open curtains as the skies mourn with him. A smile twinges the corners of his mouth, sad and broken by the tears that spill from his eyes, but it’s there and it’s felt and seen and never forgotten. Like Park Chanyeol and his music room and his desire to be remembered. 

Sehun promises to every water drop that he won’t forget Chanyeol for as long as he lives. 

━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━

"Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry.  
All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red."  
**― Kait Rokowski**


End file.
